John McAfee keeps riding the crazy train

When we left off, former software impresario and all-around goofball John McAfee had fled Central America and landed in, of all places, Portland, Oregon. Now he's speaking publicly, offering up stories about his life like:

I had my right testicle shattered by a hammer in 1974 when I ran afoul of some local drug barons in Oaxaca. It's the size of a grape now and shaped like a small frisbee.

And:

I was also taking more drugs weekly than most of you will do in a lifetime, and I was a totally indiscriminate user. Whatever came across my desk went up my nose, down my throat, in my veins or up the nether region.

The stories get stranger from there.

Q&A

Last year, McAfee was wanted for questioning by authorities in Belize (where he had lived) in a murder case—and he promptly fled, eventually landing in Guatemala and later Miami. By January 2013, he claimed that he had spied on the Belizean government as the result of a massive spyware and keylogging setup on donated laptops. He then claimed to have bought a pickup truck and driven to Portland.

On Wednesday, though, the founder of McAfee Security took to his keyboard for a moderated interview with Slashdot. The result? McAfee revealed that the reporter from Vice magazine who embedded with him and his entourage that fled Belize for Guatemala actually did leave the EXIF data containing his location on the photo. And thus, this reporter accidentally revealed McAfee’s location. (Surprise!)

That’s just one of the myriad disclosures (or possible half-truths—it’s hard to tell) that McAfee offers up.

[Vice senior editor Rocco Castoro] then told me about the location data accidentally included in the photo and that there were already posts on the Net showing Google earth images of the hotel we were staying at. It didn't sound so bad to me really—not in comparison to an angry Samantha [a girlfriend]. It meant that Guatemalan soldiers had probably already been dispatched to arrest us and that we were on the run again—this time from a different authority, but we had at least a half an hour before the authorities arrived and taxis, which did in fact affect our escape, were plentiful. I didn't see a problem...

To calm things down and to get everyone focused on our need to hastily scram, I told Rocco and Robert that I would take the fall and claim that I manipulated the exif data myself and they would be in the clear. Satisfied, they got packed, we left 10 minutes before the soldiers arrived, and I did what I said I would do. It was a stupid plan but it did clear the minds of the two journalists long enough to allow them to function properly in the shaky circumstances.

Other gems from the interview include his programming résumé:

I haven't written code in 20 years. In truth I was a terrible programmer. At all the companies I worked at I did everything within my power to avoid coding tasks. I was just good enough though to be able to spot the truly outstanding programmers. At McAfee I hired the best and then stayed out of their hair. If I had been responsible for even a tiny amount of code I fear we would never have gotten off the ground.

And on his continued association with the company that bears his name:

I haven't been involved with McAfee Anti-virus for 21 years. When I ran the company the software was the best and least intrusive on the market, and in 1991 we had 87 percent of the world market. What happened after I left was none of my doing. As to name association, I am a master at sullying my own name and, all things considered, being associated with the worst software on the planet ranks way down the pole. It's barely a blip in the ocean of associations—madman, paranoid, child molester, murderer, drug addict, unstable, liar, to name but a few. Thank god I'm 67 and will probably be too hard of hearing soon enough to have to listen to them rattling around wherever I go. Amy, thankfully, did half the job already by bursting my left eardrum when she tried to shoot me in the head while I slept back in 2011.

I feel sorry for the people who knew him who tried to defend his honor and swear all the stories about drugs were a lie or a myth, assuming they really believed that. Not that drugs are necessarily wrong regardless of legal status - but he clearly took a little too much of something.

I was also taking more drugs weekly than most of you will do in a lifetime, and I was a totally indiscriminate user. Whatever came across my desk went up my nose, down my throat, in my veins or up the nether region.

He said as much about the drugs in the interview." It's odd that people focus on the possibility that I might now be doing drugs (I'm not) and totally ignore the fact that from 1971 to 1982, 99% of my income came from smuggling and selling drugs. It's a well documented feature of my past life. I was also taking more drugs weekly than most of you will do in a lifetime, and I was a totally indiscriminate user. Whatever came across my desk went up my nose, down my throat, in my veins or up the nether region."

I feel sorry for the people who knew him who tried to defend his honor and swear all the stories about drugs were a lie or a myth, assuming they really believed that. Not that drugs are necessarily wrong regardless of legal status - but he clearly took a little too much of something.

Go back to 1987. Write off 90% of humanity, because they're either pig farmers or uninterested in tech. Next, wall off everyone writing commercial software, and focus on the paranoids that work for defense contractors. This still gives you a pool of tens of thousands of people. Better odds than the lottery, but I would agree that McAfee was very lucky.

Go back to 1987. Write off 90% of humanity, because they're either pig farmers or uninterested in tech. Next, wall off everyone writing commercial software, and focus on the paranoids that work for defense contractors. This still gives you a pool of tens of thousands of people. Better odds than the lottery, but I would agree that McAfee was very lucky.

I think it was just good timing.

He was smart enough to go hire the best programmers he could find and leave them alone though. So he was smart in that regard.

Exactly, and that's why wealth must stay safely out of you poor people's hands, it requires to be born into it to be taken care of properly, no need to thank us for protecting you, really, we're just altruistic.

He's either really off center or a marvelous troll. To be honest, I'm not sure which way to bet.

if i may offer a comment from experience: both.

in my admittedly limited experience working with ex-cokeheads, i've found they oscillate between three major poles: immature, overconfident, and rage (when the previous two poles inevitably cause drama). ego is overinflated and tends to knock over furniture. rather than admit the size of their ego is to blame, they instead blame whoever set up the furniture (i.e. belize).

More than anything, I really want to read a book or graphic novel based on his life. Crazy people dont make for folks you want involved in your life, but they sure have a hell of a story to tell

As I said in a thread months ago, I'd love to buy him a beer (or espresso, if he's not kidding about AA) and let him bend my ear for an hour. I wouldn't be able to get much of a word in edgewise, but I wouldn't want to anyways....

I was also taking more drugs weekly than most of you will do in a lifetime, and I was a totally indiscriminate user. Whatever came across my desk went up my nose, down my throat, in my veins or up the nether region.

That explains so much.

That he's half quoting the song White lines by Grandmaster Melle Mel, for one thing.

He said as much about the drugs in the interview." It's odd that people focus on the possibility that I might now be doing drugs (I'm not) and totally ignore the fact that from 1971 to 1982, 99% of my income came from smuggling and selling drugs. It's a well documented feature of my past life. I was also taking more drugs weekly than most of you will do in a lifetime, and I was a totally indiscriminate user. Whatever came across my desk went up my nose, down my throat, in my veins or up the nether region."

Before everyone starts pointing to drug psychosis as the source of his ills, it should be noted that the most productive and stable part of his life occurred after this. Back in the day, McAfee was a decent antivirus program.

Put it this way: a drug-addled megalomaniac with marginal coding skills still produced far better code than Network Associates.